Electric machines such as electric motors and generators are well known in the art. They are usually provided with a stator and a rotor coaxially mounted to the stator so as to rotate thereabout.
Some permanent magnet electric machines are provided with an internal stator and an external rotor generally enclosing the stator. When this is the case, the stator has a generally cylindrical body and coils are so mounted to the cylindrical body as to produce an outwardly projecting magnetic field that interacts with the externally provided rotor.
Conventionally, stator assemblies are made of a stack of laminations that are provided with outwardly facing slots allowing coils to be formed therein. However, when rectangular wire is used to form the coils, the coils are generally formed prior to their insertion in the stator slots. This may cause problems since the pre-formed coils may have to be slightly deformed to be inserted in the slots, which increases the production costs and may damage the coils during the insertion, leading to potential premature stator failure.